Jason Moran and The Bandwagon // Jason Moran: Fats Waller Dance Party // Mostly Other People Do the Killing

The New Yorker pianist Jason Moran is an exception on the American jazz scene. He can effortlessly turn terms like avant-garde and tradition on their head. Founded fourteen years ago, his trio The Bandwagon belongs to one of the most stable formations of contemporary jazz in New York. Seldom have awareness of tradition and a striving for innovation gone so closely hand in hand as with his playing, which assimilates the entire history of piano jazz and also brings so much of his own style that he has an influential effect. When Jason Moran turns his energies to aspects of music by Thelonious Monk or Fats Waller, it is full of futuristic power.

JasonMoran homepage

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A European premiere at the Berlin Jazz Festival is Jason Moran’s latest project: the Fats Waller Dance Party. When Moran performs this programme in America, the event organisers put out a call to bring dance shoes. Moran comments: “If you think about Fats, Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson or Earl Hines these days, they played the popular music of their time: dance music.” Jason Moran’s stride piano style is unforgettably elastic. Humour and a sense of tradition never stand in his way. And for him, looking back is always a forward-looking prospect. “Fats Waller”, Jason Moran admits, “was a provocateur of his time. That’s because he wasn’t just a pianist and singer, but on stage he was almost always an MC and commented on everything that went on around him.” With his Fats Waller Dance Party Jason Moran spans a bold arc across a century of jazz music.

“Nowhere audibly present is the pre-bop, pre-swing style that Waller delivered, as his best-known songs are being shredded and unrecognizably reshaped into jazz-infused, pop-driven rhythms (...) these electrifying postmodern musical mashups trigger elemental merrymaking.”
Downbeat

FatsWaller Dance Party @ Blue Note

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It’s enough these days just to say the six letters – MOPDtK – to kindle curiosity and enthusiasm among a rapidly growing fan base. The New Yorkers’ trademark is their extreme flexibility and musical talent, combined with audacity and dry humour. This band and their legendary live performances recklessly reshuffle all the parameters of jazz, can identify subversive elements in very different jazz styles and integrate them into their striking collages. For their current project, “Red Hot”, the quartet was augmented by a banjo, bass trombone and stride piano. The aim of their latest attack is the hot jazz of the late twenties and early thirties – or whatever notion the seven musicians have of it. These picture puzzles of history and present day are certainly hot, eclectic and anachronistic, but never lacking in respect. American jazz critic S. Victor Aaron once put his finger on it: “The new jazz rebels pay homage to the original jazz rebels.”

“Once again, MOPDtK give a history lesson on jazz without going through the chapters sequentially. By constantly jumping off from “hot” jazz to later styles, and jumping right back again, MOPDtK demonstrate how advanced, adventurous and audacious that old, pre-swing stuff really was. The new jazz subversives are paying tribute to the original jazz subversives.”
S. Victor Aaron / Something Else Reviews

MostlyOther People Do the Killing @ Hot Cup Records